


Ginger

by ljs



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: AU, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-11
Updated: 2011-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-15 14:23:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set right after the Fifth Doctor episode "Resurrection of the Daleks" -- the Doctor makes a brief visit and sees someone who looks like a good traveller. But it's the wrong time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ginger

As the TARDIS shuddered, the Doctor absently, aimlessly hit a button on the console board. His hand was still cold from those last moments on Earth, after the Daleks, after Tegan...

“Doctor.”

He shoved that cold hand in his pocket and gazed without seeing at the ceiling of the control room. It rather looked as if there was nothing there but empty space beyond the lights. Sometimes he wondered about time, he really did.

Also he should perhaps change the TARDIS's desktop theme, this one looked a bit tired.

“Doctor!”

“What, Turlough?” the Doctor said, without breaking his gaze.

“Doctor, we've landed. Somewhere.” There was a world of badly feigned patience in the lad's voice. At least, the Doctor assumed it was feigned – assumed it was patience. Could be feigned patience to cover another murder plot, of course. One never could tell with Turlough.

But the cold, the odd mournfulness the Doctor felt creeping up his throat, the physical sensation of Tegan's loss – which was rather the way he'd felt some years ago on that strange pleasure-planet when a Galaxy-Tiger cub had stopped chewing on his knuckles: one-third relieved, two-thirds desolate, all solitary – meant that he was walking far too near the precipice of self-pity. Regardless of his justifications for grief, he hated when he did that. Not good form at all. So--

“Right!” he said, with what he hoped was a slightly more successful feigning of cheerful attention. “Let's see what we have, then.”

Leaving his specs in his pocket – no need to pretend that bit, anyway – he looked at one of the screens. London again, suburbs this time. Chiswick, actually. And, “Oh, dear, 1990.”

“What's wrong with 1990?” Turlough said.

“Well, you know... I've spent so much time popping in and out of the early 80s, one worries rather about meeting time-slipped versions of one's self, or... it's just not a good idea. Still. Might as well pop out for a look.”

Turlough rolled his eyes, but then grabbed his coat. “All right.”

Two steps out the door, however, and the February cold pressed on the Doctor. It was ice-mist everywhere – he'd never liked the ice-planets, really, too many crevasses, too boringly like all the quarries he kept landing in – and he was just about to turn around when a bright-haired form appeared out of the mist and stood right under a streetlamp.

“Oi!” it—no, she-- said. She was very young, very puffy-coated, very... ginger. “What do you mean by it, eh?”

He gave her his best smile. “So sorry. What?”

“You and your police box, right in a person's way. I've got places to go--” As she tightened her grip on her large bag, she eyed him up and down. “--Posh boy.”

“I am not posh,” he said firmly.

“Prancing around in cricket gear in the middle of a cold snap? Only a posh boy would do that.”

“I am _not_ \--” He stopped himself. This way madness led. Madness, and cold, mournfulness, the sensation of loss.

This brash young girl was very like Tegan. Too close, too soon.

So he raised his hat to her, said “Sorry” once more, and withdrew with dignity. “Too cold here at the moment,” he said to Turlough. “Let's find some nice warm island instead.”

But as he shut the TARDIS door, the last thing he saw was the shine of red hair under the streetlamp.

He hoped she got where she wanted to go, he really did. She looked like she'd be an excellent traveller.

And he always did like the ginger ones.


End file.
